I’m of two minds on capital punishment. Theoretically I think it’s sometimes the best option, but practically speaking I would require so many checks on its use that, if I ruled the world, it would virtually never happen. I’d raise the burden of proof on capital crimes to a good deal higher than “beyond a reasonable doubt.”* But I can’t say I would NEVER authorize it.
That said…
Imagine we had some means of determiing with absolute certainty a defendent’s guilt and motive in murder cases; let’s say that Wonder Woman has donated her magic lasso for that purpose, or some such. Would you be willing to have such prisoners executed by guillotine?
As mentioned above, I am aiming this question specifically at death penalty proponents.
I am a supporter of capital punishment. While I couldn’t see a reason why a state would choose beheading over lethal injection, I can’t see anything in the text of the Constitution that would prohibit it.
I’ve given some thought to this question, for some reason.
I think I prefer a “nobler” method of dying. Hanging was a classic, of course, but being stabbed or shot is, to me, preferable to being poisoned or gassed or electrocuted. The former methods allow you to die “standing up”, facing the world. They might be a little more painful, but… once you’re there, I doubt it really matters much how you go. The guillotine is no certainly worse than the comepetiton in that regard. Just make sure the executioner isn’t an amateur, please!
Modern methods fo execution are quite obviously used for the executioner’s sake, and have absolutely zip to do with humane killing. It’s easier to distance onesself from the action, as it were.
I have my doubts as to the level of instantaneous death in a beheading. I think a better solution would be to have a very heavy lead ingot on rails smash your head flat.
Although I’m not a supporter of the death penalty, so I’m really just spinning wheels here.
I had a guillotine in mind. I’d want the process to be as automated as possible. And (though it’s off-topic), if I HAD to be executed, that’s how I would prefer it be done, as I am morbidly curious as to how long my brain would remain conscious.
It would seem to be at least as quick as hanging, and faster than firing squad.
I suppose it won’t ever be considered because it is too messy. If “quick and painless” is the primary consideration, then the head smashing that Lobohan suggests is about as quick and painless as one can reasonably achieve.
But, as mentioned, looking antiseptic and semi-medical is at least as much a consideration as any other. So we get lethal injection.
Personally, I think we should execute them by pumping half a bottle of Jack Daniels into them, sticking 'em in a dune buggy with the throttle welded wide open in the Badlands of South Dakota, and chase them with Delta Force Snipers in helicopters.
Killing a man is a gruesome thing. If you can’t deal with it, don’t do it.
Myself, I’m ambivalent on the death penalty, but I’m all for the “classic” methods. They’re more honest. I especially loathe lethal injection - people should be killed by killers, not doctors.
As a proponent of the death penalty, I don’t have a moral objection to beheadings. If I were guilty of a crime as determined by the OP, I’d pick a guillotine over an electric chair any day of the week.